


I Think This is the Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

by Shoulderpads



Series: Exit the Void [5]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hanging Out, Post-Kingdom Hearts III
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27262837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoulderpads/pseuds/Shoulderpads
Summary: “What?” he spat, spotting Kairi rocking on the balls of her feet bellow.“Come hang out with me!” She called with a grin.He scoffed, “What? Don’t have Sora and Riku to tell you what to do so you’re coming to me? I assure you I’m not a replacement.”She fisted her hands on her hips and leaned forward. “Oh please! I want to get to know you better, Vanitas!”“You already know everything you need to know about me.”“No way! You’re like the most mysterious person I know!” She pointed a finger gun at him and canted her head into a wink. “Or that Idon’tknow.”“No.” He grabbed the window handle.“C’mon! Let’s go to the movies! I’ll let you pick!”“I wouldn’t need you to let me.”“Then come on down then!”Surely a movie couldn’t be that bad. He wouldn’t have to talk during it. And it would make her stop shouting from the yard.“Fine.”Or “POV you’re Vanitas and Kairi is manhandling you into friendship.”
Relationships: Kairi & Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Exit the Void [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1318184
Comments: 15
Kudos: 88





	I Think This is the Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> Has it really been over a year??????? 
> 
> I’m so sorry for letting this series drop for so long! I’ve literally had this exact story planned for over a year but just couldn’t get it on the page. School and the apocalypse have killed my creativity a little bit. 
> 
> But hey! New game all about Kairi coming real soon! So I’m in time for some Kairi hype ey?
> 
> Also! NOTE: I’ve been editing the earlier works in the series to comply with re:Mind and eventually I’ll fix continuity errors in Bubble Bath so keep a look out if that matters to you

Sora left a few hours ago with Donald and Goofy, which finally gave Vanitas the peace and quiet to read. Kumo had pulled out a dusty box of paperbacks for him after putting his room (his room!) together. She said it was nice to have some things around to make the place feel more lived in, and that she wanted Vanitas to have something to do if he got bored. She’d caught him reading her cookbooks late one night, and thought he should have something more fun. 

The books had creases on their spines that cracked the ink until white streaks cut through the name printed there. There were pages with bent corners. Some had loose pages where the glue had worn out. Others had their covers holding on by just a thread. But they could still be read perfectly enough, and the beat up, worn quality made them far less imposing of a gift to accept. 

Sometimes Vanitas had a hard time relating to the characters in the stories. He immediately identified the romances as nauseating. He’d rather practice Keyblade forms from dawn to dusk than read about people making doe eyes at each other and swapping spit. Small scale stories where the conflict centered around petty drama about surviving high school made Vanitas sneer at its frivolousness. Adventure stories made his insides feel all tangled as he read about valiant and energetic boys with swords journeying with friends they found on the way to strike down the cackling villain and his lackeys. He tended to indulge in the small selection of horror, completely comfortable with the topics and ideas those books explored. They were familiar and when the protagonists took down the monster, it was the natural order of things, and when they failed to escape, they were weaklings deserving of their fate, especially when they made such terrible survival choices. However, Vanitas found he enjoyed mysteries the best. They were puzzles first and foremost. The characters were just game pieces and their emotions rarely explored. He found himself gripped by trying to figure it out for himself and seeing the pieces come together so neatly in a way that was so easy to miss but made so much sense. 

That afternoon, he was coming close to the aha moment of one such mystery while curled in the corner of his bed with the book’s cover bent back, a patch of sunlight from the window warming his socked feet. 

But he had to keep restarting his paragraph at the small clinks against his window. 

He tried to ignore it at first, the insistent smacking of gravel against the glass. His shoulders tensed with each sound, burying himself tighter into his book, but it just. Would. Not. Stop. 

He could feel the anger bubbling under her skin, and wanting to avoid any incidents, slammed a receipt between his current pages, stood, and whirled around, swinging the window open. 

“What?” he spat, spotting Kairi rocking on the balls of her feet bellow. 

“Come hang out with me!” She called with a grin. 

He scoffed, “What? Don’t have Sora and Riku to tell you what to do so you’re coming to me? I assure you I’m not a replacement.”

She fisted her hands on her hips and leaned forward. “Oh please! I want to get to know you better, Vanitas!”

“You already know everything you need to know about me.”

“No way! You’re like the most mysterious person I know!” She pointed a finger gun at him and canted her head into a wink. “Or that I _don’t_ know.”

“No.” He grabbed the window handle. 

“C’mon! Let’s go to the movies! I’ll let you pick!”

“I wouldn’t need you to let me.”

“Then come on down then!”

Surely a movie couldn’t be that bad. He wouldn’t have to talk during it. And it would make her stop shouting from the yard. 

“Fine.”

He shut the window harder that necessary, tossed his jacket over his shoulder, and trudged down the stairs.

“Vanitas?” Kumo asked, poking her head out of the kitchen. “I just made some tea, do you want a cup?”

“No,” he groaned, sighing at the ceiling. He leaned against the front door as he slipped his already tied sneakers on. 

“Oh, are you going out?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Where to?”

Vanitas shot a glare before schooling himself and taking a breath. “To the movies... _with Kairi_ ,” he said through gritted teeth. 

Kumo clapped her hands together. “Vanitas, that’s wonderful!” She walked up next to him and dug through a bag hanging off the coat rack. “Here, take this.” She held out a little pouch to him. 

He eyed it. 

“It’s munny, so you can pay for the movie tickets and some snacks.”

“Right. Of course.” He grabbed the pouch and pocketed it. 

“And it’s a good you’re bringing a jacket too, it can get chilly in theater,” she said, opening the door for him. “Have fun.”

She shooed him out of the house before he had a chance to change his mind, and then there was Kairi who had moved from the back of the house to the front. She stood with her hands on her hips with a smug expression on her face. 

“C’mon, it’s not too far of a walk,” she waved for him to follow before replacing her hands into the pouch of her hoodie. 

Vanitas shoved his own hands in his jean pockets and walked beside her.

“So, you have any ideas on what kind of movie you wanna watch? The theater is pretty new and just playing random old films from Radiant Garden and Twilight Town.” She held a finger up to her lips. “But that’s a secret, k? Scrooge paid Dilan to bring the film industry here and now the whole island thinks he’s some mysterious director with amazing inventions,” she laughed. “I bet Scrooge is going to get a sea salt ice cream shop running here before we know it.”

Vanitas let her ramble on, pretending he understood half of what she said. They had movie theaters in Shibuya, but they hadn’t had the time to go into one, though plenty of televisions around the area advertised them. Perhaps Radiant Garden had had them too, though Vanitas wouldn’t have noticed at the time, and he’d had no interested in exploring anyway. 

They were...like books. But with images. 

“So, yeah. I don’t actually know what they’ll have but if there’s anything in particular you think you might want to see? Your choice.” She grinned. 

He considered the girl, bubblegum pink from her hoodie to her skort. She had purple sneakers and bracelets that jangled with every move of her arm. She’d even pulled her hair back with flower pins. Her smile was nothing less than molotov of bottled sunshine. She was perfectly warm and bright and absolutely saccharine. 

“Ok then,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “I want to go see the scariest movie they got there. The most violent and gory of the bunch. I’m talking blood and guts.”

Kairi hummed, “Alright then! They should probably have something since summer’s over and we’re getting closer to October. I can’t make and promises, but we’ll see what they got,” she said, expression never faltering. She practically oozed enthusiasm and it made Vanitas sneer at the concrete. 

—

The theater had a strong scent. Kairi inhaled it enthusiastically while looking over the different film options and describing what they were probably about based on the title and poster. Eventually they settled on a zombie movie. 

Kairi had asked the person at the booth for two tickets, the worker told her the price, Vanitas promptly divided that by two, fished out that amount from the munny pouch, and just as promptly had his wrist smacked by Kairi. 

“Hey, hey, my treat,” she said, slapping the full price onto the counter. 

She hadn’t even hit him hard. No wonder Xehanort had overpowered her so easily if that was the strength she displayed. Sora’s insistence on protecting her made a little more sense. She certainly wasn’t any Master Aqua. 

She handed him his ticket and led him to another counter. The greasy smell emanated more strongly from here, and Vanitas could see different food stuff and drinks behind the cashiers. A lanky teenager eyed them dully, waiting for their order. 

“So, what do you want?” Kairi asked, rocking on her heels. 

Vanitas read through the menu. The choices swam in front of his eyes. Half the stuff he either hadn’t tried or ever heard of. Back in Shibuya, food had been strategic, and something Vanitas let Sora take the lead on. He _did_ know more about adventuring anyway. But food in the normal worlds didn’t have any tactical value aside from the different nutrients they satisfied. Mostly it seemed up to opinions on flavor, of which Vanitas had very few. 

“Popcorn is standard fare,” Kairi said. “Plus it’ll last you through the whole movie while a pretzel lasts like five minutes. And I’m feeling a little crazy today, so I think I’ll get one of the frozen drinks.”

“How can they be drinks if they’re frozen?” He scrunched his nose. 

“It’s like super finely crushed ice. Like snow I guess, they’re sweet and refreshing. Kinda like ice cream,” she answered. 

Vanitas frowned, thinking of the snow he face planted in after being launched through that door. But the cashier’s bored eyes burning into him and the incomprehensible list of other foods he didn’t recognize kept him from asking about more. 

“...sure. I’ll get that.” he said, digging his hands in his pockets. 

Kairi ordered them a big bucket of popcorn to share and two slushies of different colors. 

The theater was a dark room full of plush chairs and video playing on one entire wall. Kairi led him to the highest row at the back of the theater and sat them in the center. Footage played in small, three to five minute clips. None of them had zombies though, so Vanitas assumed they weren’t the movie. 

“Do you want cherry or blue raspberry?” Kairi asked. She had the popcorn bucket balanced on her lap and a slushie in each hand. “Or you could try both of them to decide if you aren’t sure. I’m not too worried about your cooties.”

He rolled his eyes and grabbed the red one. It tasted sickly sweet. He could almost feel his teeth rotting, but it wasn’t...bad. 

“Oh good, I like blue better anyway.” Kairi grinned, slotting her drink in the armrest’s circular compartment. 

Vanitas mirrored the action. 

She settled the popcorn bucket on the armrest between them. “Here. So we can share.”

He grabbed a piece of it and put it in his mouth. It was salty and fatty. It crunched but also melted in his mouth. He reached back for more. 

Kairi slapped him lightly on the wrist again. “No more until the movie starts, otherwise we’ll run out. What did you think though?”

He scowled and looked away. “It’s...fine. I guess.”

Kairi nodded and turned toward the screen. 

After more meaningless clips of footage, the lights eventually went down, leaving the room comfortably dark. 

“Ooh! It’s starting!” Kairi whispered. 

Vanitas took that as his cue to continue with the popcorn. 

The movie was about some brain dead teenagers spending a week long break from school in some forest cottage. They drank alcohol, smoked what definitely didn’t look like a cigarette, and kissed sloppily and aggressively until the camera cut away. A news report came on the radio giving out a warning, but one of the drunk girls switched it to a station blaring music so she could dance on the coffee table. All the while, zombies slowly encroached on their isolated little cabin. 

Kairi made hushed comments the whole time. “Don’t go in there” or “why would you split up?” It made Vanitas close to clamping a hand over her mouth, but then she’d make snide comments riffing on the protagonists. Vanitas almost, emphasis, almost, laughed when one of the zombies ripped open the skull of the football player and Kairi leaned over to say “he really has a brain in there?” The dark humor kept his hands to himself. 

He was about to consider not hating her during a scene where a girl was hidden in a closet while a zombie approached with a limping pace. The girl shrunk tighter into the corner as it’s heavy, uneven footsteps came closer and closer. She closed her eyes, hand over her mouth to hush her ragged breathing. 

The door swung open, and something _touched_ Vanitas. 

He jumped with a shower of popcorn, nearly summoning his keyblade. 

Kairi laughed, trying to muffle the sound. Still a couple sitting in front of them twisted around to glare. Vanitas glared back before turning it to Kairi. 

She wiped a tear from her eye. “You should’ve seen your face.”

He huffed. “You should see your face when I do that to you.” He pointed at the girl being eviscerated on screen. 

Kairi snorted. 

Vanitas picked popcorn out of his hair. 

—

“What did you think?” Kairi asked once they outside. 

Vanitas blinked, dazed by the daylight still shining. He sniffed. “It was nice seeing such idiots get what they deserved.”

Kairi giggled. “That’s supposed to be scary, not cathartic!”

“Well they were stupid and would never survive such a situation in a real life scenario anyway,” he said. 

“Yeah, I thought it was pretty funny too.”

They started down the sidewalk. 

Honestly, as satisfying as comeuppances were, the blood spilling did make him a little uneasy. He had never really thought too extensively about his insides before. He knew he had blood and he’d seen bone before, but brains and intestines were not something he thought of. The fleshy bits that spilled from the humans made him cringe. But it also made him wonder if he looked the same on the inside as them, or if being whatever he was would make him something different. He wasn’t sure what he preferred and thinking about it too long made him start to feel ill. 

Kairi tugged on his arm. He snatched it away, snapping his head to her. 

“There’s an arcade across the street, we should totally go!” she said. 

“Arcade?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it’s a place with games and you can earn prizes if you’re good.”

Vanitas cast his eyes skyward and sighed. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Kairi clapped her hands together. 

—

The arcade was a place of sensory overload, and Vanitas took a moment in the doorway to take it all in. The machines all made a variety of noise from musical bleeps to robotic voices challenging whoever walked by. They also glowed and flashed in technicolor. The place had dim lights which made the neon blare even more. The closest comparison he had was Shibuya, but this was like the whole city condensed in one building. At least it wasn’t very busy people wise. 

Meanwhile Kairi had gone and bought them two cups of tokens. He hadn’t even noticed her walk away. 

She toured him around and explained the machines, demonstrating some of her favorites. She loved skee ball though she couldn’t score to save her life, but on chance games like a random spinning wheel, she excelled. She also did pretty well at a racing game based in trapping your opponent. 

Vanitas enjoyed the more physical games. He’d broken the record and won the jack pot on the whac-a-bo machine. Other games that tested his reflexes sucked him in while others bored him with their simplicity. As it stood, he was rather numbly fixing windows and dodging bricks, though he’d much rather play as the antagonist. Wasn’t destruction part of the fun of these games? So many had guns and explosions. 

Regardless of how easy the game was, he couldn’t help and itching feeling of deja vu from crawling up his back. He was pretty sure he’d never played a video game before, even if it came naturally. It was pretty intuitive after all. 

The feeling made him positively queasy, and he let the brute brick him to death. The machine spat out a string of tickets that he snatched before seeking out Kairi. 

He found her next to a large pile of tickets and on top a platform, moving her feet in the cardinal directions to match the ones floating by on a screen. She put in little bits of style like spins or dropping back to hit the southern arrow with her hand instead. It didn’t seem to benefit her score, but Vanitas couldn’t blame anyone for style points. 

Once the song ended, the machine congratulated her on an excellent job and began releasing a stream of tickets. She whooped at her score and turned to him, wiping at her forehead with her sleeve. 

“What’s up, Vanitas?”

He flicked his eyes away from the screen to her. “Uh...how long have video games been a thing?”

She raised an eyebrow at him, leaning her elbows on the machine’s railing. “I don’t know. Most of these are imports from Radiant Garden too, and I was too young to have played video games when I ended up here. But I think Cid, a guy from there, talked about liking them as a kid so they must be _ancient_ ,” she said with a laugh. “Why?”

“Just-” He shrugged. “-wondering.”

“Mm...ok.” She hopped off the platform and scooped her tickets into her arms. “C’mon, I wanna show you the claw machines.”

—

“Ooh! Ooh! You did it!” Kairi put both her hands on his shoulder and jumped up and down. The claw dropped the bear and Kairi pulled it out from the little door on the bottom. “It’s so cute!” She held it out to him. “Good job!”

He stared at the fabric bear sagging in Kairi’s grip. Sure, succeeding felt good, but now what? “What’s it’s purpose?”

She blinked at him. “It’s a teddy bear.”

He continued to stare. 

“Yknow, like a stuffed animal?”

It was certainly a stuffed effigy of a bear, but that didn’t explain the point of the thing. 

Kairi frowned, eyebrows knit together. She lowered her arms and drummed her fingers against the bear’s belly for a moment before looking back up. “You came from Ventus, right?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“So...do you remember a time from before? Like when you were together?”

Vanitas nodded, unsure why it mattered. “Yes, I retained the memories he lost in the split. Why?”

Kairi looked like someone had struck a blow to her stomach. “And you never had a teddy bear?”

He shrugged. “Even before then, our memory was damaged. Anything before Xehanort is gone. I knew basic things like what clouds or books are, but where I came from or things like parents are not there. So maybe I’ve seen a teddy bear before, maybe not.” He shrugged one shoulder, not seeing why it should matter.

“Wow, that sucks.”

“So, what’s it do?”

Kairi looked at the bear. “Oh yeah! Uhh, you cuddle it.” She hugged it to her chest. “Yknow, just something soft and nice to hold when you’re in bed. It’s especially good if there are storms or you have a nightmare or something. It’s comforting.”

“How can a piece of fabric be comforting?” He crossed his arms. 

“Sure, well...how do those clothes make you feel?”

He glanced down at the outfit he’d put on that day. “Comfortable.”

Kairi nodded. “Does it make you feel cool?”

He flexed the fingerless gloves on one hand. “Yeah.”

“But they’re just fabric. How can they make you feel cool?” Kairi smirked. 

Before he knew it, he’d smirked too. “Touché.”

She shoved the bear into his chest, making him scramble to catch it. “It’s getting late, let’s turn in our tickets and head back, yeah?”

In the end, they’d been able to consolidate their tickets and both get foam dart guns along with some other trinkets like sticky hands and a black and red snap bracelet that Vanitas hid under his sleeve. 

—

They’d lapses into a comfortable silence on the way home, with only the sound of Kairi’s shoe laces slapping the sidewalk. She checked her gummi phone apparently unaware that Vanitas could easily take advantage of her distraction. Hell, it wouldn’t be hard to stick his foot out and trip her or step on her laces. Well, that, or she...trusted him, but he’d rather believe she was stupid enough to go off in her own little world and not stupid enough to put faith in him. 

But he didn’t trip her. No, instead he bristled in the silence and broke it instead of her ankle. “Must be weird spending the day with me, all things considered.”

“Hm?” She turned to him, locking the phone and slipping it away. “No, I had a lot of fun! We crushed it at the arcade!”

“No, I mean, because I’m me, and you’re...you.”

“Oh, because you look li-“

“No! I-” His hands waved stiffly in the air as he struggled to articulate his point. “You’re all light.”

Her nose scrunched up a little. “You don’t really believe any of that stuff matters, do you?”

He sputtered. “Of course it does!”

“Just because-“

 _Here it comes,_ he thought. Here comes the part where she’d tell him he had to have light in him somewhere and he doesn’t have to be darkness or whatever-

“-you’re all darkness and I’m all light doesn’t mean you’re evil and I’m pure.”

He blinked, surprised.

She laughed. “C’mon! You think I’ve never done wrong? I used to lick Riku’s sandwiches when he wasn’t looking, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pushed Sora off the paopu tree and into the ocean just because the squawk he made was funny. And when Xemnas grabbed me...” she glared at the ground and clenched her fists. “I wanted him to die, he was popping out my shoulder, and it hurt, and he was using me as leverage and I thought I was done being in that position, and I wanted to spin around and catch his skin on the hooks of my Keyblade. I was _so mad!_ ”

Vanitas reeled back from the anger that came off her in waves. 

“And you.” She spun on him with a finger pointed in his face. “You haven’t done anything remotely evil since getting here. You haven’t attacked anyone, you worked with me today towards a mutual goal, and I know you like baking.”

Vanitas crossed his arms and muttered, “How can I be ‘the most mysterious person you know’ if Sora tells you everything?”

“And I mean,” she continued, ignoring him, “being a Princess of Heart means I can do special things, but being so in tune with dark means you can do other special things. We’re elementals, you and I. You and me hanging out is no more volatile than if Axel hung out with Demyx-personalities aside.”

He...hadn’t thought of it that way...everyone always waxed about philosophy on the abstract nature of light and dark. No one had simply reduced it down to elements. 

“You’re not half bad, Kairi.”

She gave him a cocky grin. “I know.”

—

Sora was lounging on the couch when Vanitas came back with the setting sun. He smiled at his phone, saving a photo Kairi sent him of Vanitas hunched over the controls of a claw machine. The game had his complete attention. His eyes were intense and his brows furrowed, but his tongue stuck out just a little from the corner of his mouth. 

He startled and nearly dropped the device when something hit him in the forehead. A foam dart with a suction cup landed in his lap. He whipped around to look at the doorway where Vanitas stood with a plastic gun raised and a stuffed bear hanging off his other arm. 

“Always be aware of your surroundings, sky boy,” Vanitas said, blowing on the end of the not smoking gun. 

“I’m in my house!” Sora waved his arms around the room. 

Kumo stuck her head out from the kitchen. “Vanitas, don’t shoot that in the house, please.”

He lowered the toy. “Yes ma’am.”

“I’m keeping this,” Sora said, holding the dart up. 

“What? No.” Vanitas glared. “That’s mine.”

Sora closed his fist around the dart and held it close to his chest. “But you shot it at me.”

Vanitas rolled his eyes. “Keep your loser dart then. It’s defective anyway. Didn’t even stick.”

“Souvenir of the time I survived a sneak attack from Vanitas.”

Vanitas groaned and began marching up to his room. 

“Did you have a good time?” Kumo called. 

He sighed loudly. “It was _ok_ I _guess_.” 

But when he shut the door, he smiled just a little. He tossed the bear on the bed, and the dart gun and trinkets became the first thing on his book shelf that were his.

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s the part where I give you an empty reassurance that the next part shouldn’t take too long because I have a plan. In fact, I have over 2k already written for the part after next part. So hopefully we can get this steam train rolling again. 
> 
> As always, I’m shoulderpads-mcgee2 on tumblr and your words are my lifeblood


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